


we have not touched the stars

by bravely (commovente)



Series: the spaces between (your fingers and mine) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, How Do I Tag, M/M, POV Second Person, also for a history nerd this is by no means historically accurate, first fic ever, idek anymore it is 11 pm and i am iwaoi trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2722127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commovente/pseuds/bravely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You think, "if it’s you, I wouldn’t mind following for the entirety of my existence, and in every one after."</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have not touched the stars

**Author's Note:**

> largely inspired by the song "to you" by young wonder.  
> you can check it out if you like, and some of the lyrics are also interspersed throughout the fic

i. prelude

_[Miyagi Prefecture, Japan]_

You remember pain. It’s fleeting, and it fades just as quickly as it appears, but it’s there. You remember pain, and lots of it. It’s different from the familiar soreness from volleyball practice; like a phantom ache, the twinge of wounds that aren’t there, residual pain from injuries long gone. A little odd, but nothing you aren’t already accustomed to. Really, it’s the sensations accompanying the pain that you can’t seem to shake off so well. Like the pain, these too are fleeting - momentary visions, sights and sounds that could just as easily be passed off as memory if they weren’t so obviously, well, not.

The smack of volleyballs hitting the court is nothing new, but the mirroring images of bodies on the ground where each ball lands is; shouts across the court akin to cries for blood on a battlefield in your (increasingly) disoriented mind. You’re not entirely sure how it is that you know these things to be true, only that you do.

_you’ve seen this all before and you’ll see it all again —_

“Iwa-chan!”

The childish endearment is irritating, loud and (you’ll never admit, not even with your dying breath) comfortingly commonplace. It grounds you, anchors you back in the here and the now - _Thursday afternoon, volleyball practice, a high school gymnasium in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan_ \- and if anything it should be this voice, this person, which cements that this is real, but it doesn’t. Oikawa Tooru is a maelstrom of contradictions - a smile like sunlight and a storm for a heart, the charming and self-assured veneer belying an avalanche of insecurities and irrational anxiety. And above all, an almost overwhelming thirst for victory, one that is perhaps much too intense than high-school volleyball would dictate, so infectious that damn Assikawa might’ve even passed it on to you. After all, you’ve been together since before even your earliest memories, and you think it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that you know him better than you know yourself. But this too, invokes an inexplicable sense of deja vu.

Like you’ve always been with this person, and not in the overly-attached-childhood-friend sort of way, but something longer, more permanent than that (you think of words like _timeless_ , words like _infinite_ , words that sound much too close to _forever_ than you’re comfortable acknowledging). Oikawa calls to you and so you fall back to his side. It’s instinctive, even more so than breathing. He is here, and so shall you be.

_you’ve done this hundreds, thousands of times before —_

Either that, or the attention-stealing brat’s finally got the best of you, and you can’t help but be fine-tuned to his words, his movements, the slightest changes in his well-controlled expressions. You’ve done this all before, and even if you did have a choice (you don’t, don’t think you ever did, not really), you’d do it all again.

**[WE HAVE NOT TOUCHED THE STARS]**

* * *

 

ii. aria

You like science. It’s straightforward and logical - everything has a place, an order - it makes the world make sense. As the old adage goes, if science can’t explain it, then obviously it isn’t real. _Obviously._ Well, maybe that’s not really true, but it’s comforting nonetheless.

For example, when you were seven years old, you took Oikawa with you to catch bugs. In hindsight, this was a terrible idea, in which no desirable outcome could possibly take place. But at the time, Oikawa had begged and wheedled, refusing to be left alone (“you can’t leave me, Iwa-chan!! What if aliens come and take me??” “Then the world would be a whole lot quieter without you, Trashikawa. Also, aliens aren’t even real.” “RUDE.”) until finally, you supposed you _could_ take him with you just once, so long as you could finally get round to catching that one elusive stag beetle, it’d been eluding you for _days_. Of course, loudmouth best friends bursting in mid-search probably didn’t help matters. To make a long story short, you’d gone home later that afternoon with bruised elbows and knees, a crying Oikawa, and a decided lack of stag beetles, elusive or no.

Anyway, the point was - against better judgement, you had taken a bug-phobic idiot bug catching, and ended up hurt as a result. Action and consequence, very logical. Science was like that; there were patterns to be observed, laws to explain things into their proper place. Laws like the Conservation of Matter, which states that matter could never be created or destroyed, no matter how many times it changes shape.

_(you and oikawa together, in every life, in every time, this is the rule)_

But some things aren’t so easily explained away. Like phantom pains and split-second visions; fever dreams of pillars and plains and places long lost; recollections of blood and battle and belonging, people you’ve never met and people (read: a particular infuriating individual) you have, but couldn’t possibly have existed within the memories - _dreams_ \- that plague you. Dreams are not explainable on any account. Dreams are neither scientific nor logical; they aren’t memory or truth or anything quantifiable as belonging to the realm of reality. Dreams do not - should not - have certain brown-haired, bratty best friends thrust into the throes of battle, of events you tell yourself you only know about from history, of leadership much more substantial than the captaincy of a high school volleyball team.

Then again, if science truly did render everything real, explainable, then surely there would be some rhyme or reason behind the patience and persistence and undeniable _loyalty_ you possessed for said brown-haired, bratty best friend. Because that loyalty, that bond and unshakeable _trust_ is absolutely, most definitely real, science be damned. You know it’s true, because you’ve seen it - in the effortless synchronicity of both your movements, the perfect ease each of you have in reading the other, the occasional stares you catch from Oikawa that look the way your flashbacks (dreams, only _dreams_ ) feel. Real, real, real. Right?

_can you get to sleep tonight_

_[a greek war camp, the battlefields by troy]_

Like legends, high and mighty, charging into battle only to emerge victorious. He at the fore, you at his back. This is the way of things, always has been, always will be. Except at the end of the day, even the greatest of heroes, the most fearless of humans, are only that in the end - human. Call it a matter of pride, call it a matter of bull-headed obstinacy, Achilles refuses to return to the front lines. He stays where he is, a shadow lurking at the edges of the camp, waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to be remembered. You stay with him.

***

Oikawa has always been a fan of history. For all his fickleness and flattery and various attempts to get you to study with him (read: do his homework for him - _like hell_ , the dumbass) Oikawa is diligent with the subject; whole-hearted concentration directed towards the memorisation of historical dates and figures, patterns and perspectives. But sometimes, you spot him poring over textbooks just a little too hard, scrawling out notes for exams with just a little too much fervour, like he could commit everything to memory through sheer quantity of revision.

Except, there are times he does this days, even weeks after exams are finished, eyes bright with a focus you’ve only ever seen elsewhere on the court, dissecting his opponent’s movements, pulling their tactics apart into something easily countered, completely outmatched. A hunter chasing down his prey, naturally, like he’s done it all before and he’ll do it all again. Maybe he has. You think of his swift and graceful movements, the easy camaraderie you share both on and off the court, his trust in you to score whenever he’s cornered.

_endless beginnings and countless ends, you and he again and again —_

You look to him to lead you forward, he looks to you to make sure he doesn’t look back.

_— always together, beginning to end_

***

_[a falling comrade, the gates of troy]_

Death approaches all humans, no matter how great, no matter how unknown. You are only human, and this is something you’ve never forgotten, but fear that he has. He’s a hero, possibly the greatest of all to date, and yet for all his heroism there is also pride, and it’s that which brought you where you are now - dying at the gate of your enemy, dressed in your best friend’s armour, a wolf in sheep’s clothing just trying to lead the rest of his pack home.

You are dying, and Achilles will be furious, furious enough to lay down his pride and avenge his fallen brother-in-arms. You are dying, but you don’t think you mind all that much, if it brings him back to the person you know him to be, the hero known through all of Greece that the soldiers must now surely look to as their final chance of salvation.

You are dying, but a part of you doesn’t yet believe that this is really the end.

_i think the pain in my ribs has subsided_

_[the village of mieza, macedonia]_

You’ve always been close, never one without the other, and schooling has been no different. Aristotle looked at you with humour in his eyes, called you and Alexander “one soul abiding in two bodies”, and maybe it’s true. There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason for you to as close as you are, anyway, enough that all the other boys under Aristotle’s tutelage know not to get too close - after all, between the duo that you make, you and Alexander, Alexander and Hephaestion - there was never all that much space for anything else.

***

Someday your childhood friend will be king, and as surely as your heart beats in your chest you know it beats for him; you’d follow him anywhere. You, the wings at his back; you, the wind pushing him to ever greater heights.

_side by side, the king and his lionheart, a fated pair —_

Until, all too suddenly, you are not.

It all goes downhill from there.

***

_[a hero’s deathbed, the city of ectabana]_

There’s an ache in your bones, deep and pulsing, fresh waves of pain to refresh the hurt of the last. Alone in the tent, you thought you’d recovered; at least, recovered enough to give yourself something to eat. The key word in this self-deprecating little anecdote being _thought_. Past tense, just like you in the next few minutes, without any immediate help perceivable on the horizon. _Because that’s not morbid at all_.

While a long life was never one you had imagined for yourself - you’re a soldier, after all - there’s a part of you that can’t help wishing for a different end, one that is possibly more glorified than a sudden relapse after a bit too much to eat. You’re the chiliarch of the Empire, the king’s own second-in-command, and -

 _The king_. Hailed as the greatest leader in all the lands, Alexander was - _is_ \- your childhood friend and lifelong partner. Alexander, who had deemed you well enough to leave temporarily in order to attend to the rest of the Empire. There’s talk enough as it is amongst the nobility, even without the monarch dropping everything to pay visits to a lesser’s sickbed. You’ve heard the rumours, heard the whispers trailing your footsteps. _Blatant favouritism… rules the king with his thighs_ … You’ve heard the rumours, but it’s the words of someone else that linger, burned into the deepest recesses of your mind. Words like _we will rule together_ , _you and I_ , words like _where would I be without you?_ , words like _he too is Alexander_.

_you are two peas in a pod, a single soul abiding in two bodies —_

It’s dangerous, playing with fire, and he isn’t your lover but he is your king; and that, you think, counts for more than all the riches across the entire Empire.

You think, _if it’s you, I wouldn’t mind following for the entirety of my existence, and in every one after._

***

_and then i will close my eyes_

_[a jousting tournament’s finals, England]_

Breathe. In, out. Slow and heavy and deep, an air of forced calm with every inhale and exhale. The finals draw ever nearer, and your lord has quite a hefty sum riding on its results. You will not fail him, of course; you never have, and maybe that’s why he trusts you so, the chivalrous knight winning tournaments left and right in the name of his lord. Heralds call your name, and a roaring crowd answers back. It’s a full house today, all eyes on you, but that doesn’t matter. There’s only one person in the entire arena whose attention you wish to hold, whose gaze you wish to be always upon you - and for now, it is. So long as you continue to win, you think maybe it always will. You could never fail him.

_(a stunned silence and the crowd explodes)_

_(a lance through your chest but the ache in your heart)_

In the seconds it takes to fall from your horse to the ground, a lone figure pushes to the front of the crowd. He stands tall but not proud, shaking; a defeated lord. The sun is still bright, but darkness settles in your eyes, licks at the edges of your vision, and in this final moment you decide that you didn’t have to keep winning to keep his attention on you, not at all. You just had to keep coming back to him, in the end, and the knowledge doesn’t make your heart hurt any less as your eyes slip shut.

***

_[the Ipatiev House, Russia]_

_A little longer, just a little longer._ The same sentence over and over again for days, in equal parts a mantra and a plea; to whichever gods might be listening, to a person your own age just miles away now, to wait a little longer. Soon you’d be there, and soon they would be safe.

_if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride_

It had been a long time coming, and the Romanov family had been moved from place to place, more and more remote each time, but finally they would be saved. There’s a niggling voice at the back of your mind, relentless and doubtful, but it’s dutifully ignored; overshadowed by the all-consuming, encompassing hope for reunion. To others you must sound like a zealot, a purist follower of a dying royal dynasty, and on some level perhaps it’s true. You know better, though - you’re here because you made a promise, and you are not a liar (but perhaps the promise of forever was too tall an order to ever follow through).

_where would you be without him, follow him always and forever and back again —_

***

You never were a lucky person, fighting tooth and nail for even the smallest of favours. And yet, in the cold and weary days of a childhood growing up in Russia, there was a patch of brightness. A smile like sunlight, a laugh like church bells. He was a royal, but not incapable. Your loyalty for him you expected, but there was no logic to explain the swell of fierce pride that swept over you with every step you took together.

But, you were never a lucky person, and it should make sense that this, too could not possibly last, not even in the face of a promise for forever.

_a little longer, just a little bit longer —_

The house was empty. The house was empty, and they were meant to be here but they weren’t; he was meant to be here, healthy and well and alive, not another memory in a house that was empty and smelled of gunfire and fear.

_— see you promised him forever and he said that meant for always_

You’re no stranger to loss; the loss of those most important to you especially. Not even two decades of life lived, but already you’re accustomed to an ache in your chest and an absence by your side.

Like you’ve done it all before and would do it all again.

It never makes it any easier, though.

***

_[a hospital’s front desk, Hiroshima]_

You are crying in a hospital. The air smells like antiseptic, the seats like sickness. You are crying in a hospital, and the unoriginality of the phrase isn’t lost on you. Lots of people die in hospitals, it’s a place where lives begin as often as they end; where people walk in but not always out. You know this, you do, but like every headstrong, healthy soul, you never think it’ll happen to you. You know the stories but that’s all they are, stories, until you’re best friend falls sick (you refuse to accept the finally of the word _dead_ ) and suddenly you might never want to leave the hospital again. Not alone, not without him, not another statistic to add to the ever-growing numbers lost since the hospital’s inception.

_you’d cross the world for him, and you have, and you will once more —_

You’re not the first to walk out of a hospital one friend less than before, and you certainly won’t be the last. You might just be a statistic, his mortality just another number, but neither fact nor figure stops you from feeling the lump in your throat and the loss in your chest. There is a wrongness to the situation, like an overbalanced scale or an unbalanced equation, only half of a whole with no way to recover.

_(he said he lived for you but now you see that it’s the other way around)_

***

In every life and every age, he is there, so you shall follow. Different names, different faces, changing circumstances and static memories. Some day, in some _life_ , you will stand beside him and you will not fall.

But until then.

Until then.

_see you, see you in the next life_

***

iii. coda

_[Miyagi Prefecture, Japan]_

You meet Oikawa when you are five years old. He’s an energetic child, if a tad frail-looking; with a smile like sunlight and a laugh like church bells, annoyingly incessant and almost begging to be heard again. He’s a far cry from you, all bruised elbows and scabbed knees, but somehow the two of you get along. It’s hard to explain how you fit, but even harder to try and explain why you wouldn’t. You’d stick by Oikawa’s side, even if he didn’t cling onto you like glue. It’s obvious, instinctive - never mind that he’s annoying and sometimes ( _always_ ) a crybaby, or that you’re too rough instead of gentle, Oikawa never much cared about kinda that stuff anyway. He calls out to you and you are by his side.

_(you and oikawa together, in every life, in every time, this is the rule)_

You meet Oikawa when you are five years old, and it feels like a puzzle piece sliding into its place, like the click of a door shut after finally returning home, like a thousand things you could try to explain but not in a way anybody else would understand. You look at him, and Oikawa begins to cry. Your mothers are baffled; they fuss around him like overprotective hens, but then he looks at you and everything else melts away and suddenly, even more inexplicably, you begin to cry too.

_endless beginnings and countless ends, you and he again and again —_

_— always together, beginning to end_

***

**_“We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.”_ \- Richard Siken, _Snow and Dirty Rain_**

**Author's Note:**

> ...hi.  
>  so if you're reading this right now, then i'm going to assume that you stuck with me all the way till the end - in which case thank you so much, you are a lovely and intrepid soul, and you've made me very very happy hhhh
> 
> no but seriously this is like my first fic ever, and there are still bits and pieces i'm not entirely happy with, so any kind of thoughts/feedback/criticism would be much appreciated !!


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